知识产权保护增强与我国出口产品质量升级——以市级专利代办处设立为例

Stronger Intellectual Property Protection and Chinese Export Product Quality Upgrading-Evidencefromthe Establishment of Municipal Patent Agency

本文将专利审批周期引入异质性企业理论模型,探讨了知识产权保护增强影响企业出口产品质量的微观机制。在此基础上,本文运用2000—2013年中国工业企业和海关数据库,将市级层面专利代办处的设立作为准自然实验,采用跨期双重差分方法,对理论假说进行了验证。结果显示:市级专利代办处的设立缩短了专利审批时间,提高了专利审查效率,增强了知识产权保护,对我国出口产品质量有显著的正向影响,并且这一影响具有时间持续性。机制分析表明:知识产权保护增强一方面通过创新激励效应促进企业的研发投入和专利申请,提高企业创新能力,另一方面通过质量选择效应促进对发达国家的出口,从而推动我国出口产品质量升级。同时,异质性分析显示,知识产权保护增强更能提高外资和私营企业、高生产率企业、技术密集型行业和知识产权密集型行业企业的出口产品质量。

This paper incorporates the patent approval cycle into the heterogeneous firm theory model and discusses the micro-mechanism of the impact of stronger intellectual property protection on export product quality of enterprises.On this basis,using data from the Chinese industrial enterprise database and the China Customs database from 2000 to 2013,we take the establishment of municipal patent agency as a quasi-natural experiment and employ the intertemporal difference-in-differences method to verify the conclusion of the theoretical model.The results show that the establishment of municipal patent agency shortens the patent approval time,improves the efficiency of patent review,and strengthens intellectual property protection,leading to a significantly positive impact on Chinese export product quality,which persists over time.Our mechanism analysis reveals that stronger intellectual property protection drives Chinese export product quality upgrading through two channels:on the one hand,it promotes enterprises'R&D investment and patent applications through innovation incentives,improves their innovative capabilities;on the other hand,it promotes exports to developed countries through quality selection effects.Furthermore,heterogeneity analysis shows that enhanced intellectual property protection better improves the export product quality of foreign-funded enterprises,private enterprises,high-productivity enterprises,technology-intensive industries,and intellectual property-intensive industries.